However, the unitary tradition, which survived the invasion, prevented the definitive prevailing of disintegrating anarchy. Already ‛Abd al-‛Aziz, son of Mūsà and first Muslim governor (713-15), had established a court in Seville made magnificent by the presence of the Gothic aristocracy, and, husband of Rodrigo’s widow, perhaps he had come to seek the help of the supporters of this king to become independent from Damascus. But his attempts had been made in vain by the reaction of the party of Witiza’s descendants, siding in favor of the caliph, and by the hostility of his co-religionists, who had killed him, perhaps to avoid his conversion to Christianity, more likely to prevent a strengthening of the state, which would have put an end to the exploits of Conquest and the raids. Then, the country was firmly organized by ‛Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Mu‛āwiyah, grandson of Caliph Hishām and one of the few Umayyads who escaped the slaughter of his family. In the anxious search for a throne, which the prophecies of an uncle had promised him, after five years in Africa and full of adventures, taking advantage of the help of a few faithful, in September 755 he landed in Almuñécar, near Málaga. Taking a position in the local civil struggles, with the support of one of the contenders on May 14 of the following year he was able to conquer the victory in Almozara, on the Guadalquivir, and this assured him the possession of Cordova, where in July he was recognized as an emir also by the won rival. Then he began to rule as a true independent monarch (756-88). And in continuous struggle against the various Arab bloodlines and against the Berbers, rebelled again under the orders of Chaqya, a schoolmaster who boasted a descendant of Fāṭima daughter of the Prophet, although sometimes abandoned by friends and betrayed by relatives, with marvelous energy and skill he knew how to strengthen the unity of the state. “Having no other help than his shrewdness and perseverance – wrote the caliph‛ abbāside al-Manṣūr – he knew how to humiliate the proud adversaries, kill the rebels, defend the borders against the attacks of Christians, found a great empire and unite under his scepter a vast country that seemed divided among numerous leaders “. unity of the state. “Having no other help than his shrewdness and perseverance – wrote the caliph‛ abbāside al-Manṣūr – he knew how to humiliate the proud adversaries, kill the rebels, defend the borders against the attacks of Christians, found a great empire and unite under his scepter a vast country that seemed divided among numerous leaders “. unity of the state. “Having no other help than his shrewdness and perseverance – wrote the caliph‛ abbāside al-Manṣūr – he knew how to humiliate the proud adversaries, kill the rebels, defend the borders against the attacks of Christians, found a great empire and unite under his scepter a vast country that seemed divided among numerous leaders “.
The work he accomplished was so solid, and so profound the experience he left behind, that, being the talent and the directives of government of his successors, despite the succession and the overlapping of numerous crises, and despite the serious blows that old and new enemies inflicted on him, the political organism he created outlived its creator for two and a half centuries.
After the death of ‛Abd ar-Raḥmān, other reasons for the unrest were added or replaced. The jurists (fuqah ā ‘) acquired great authority, especially as a result of the religious policy of the emir Hichām I (788-96), son of the dead: and their desire for power became insatiable, their fanaticism without limits. The “renegades” rose up because they were dissatisfied with their condition, that is, those of the indigenous people who had abjured Christianity by their own will, and the muwallads, as the children of mixed marriages were called, subject to Muslim law and also frowned upon by the Arabs and generally excluded from the government of the state, although, especially the former, they were rich and, due to the ever more numerous conversions, continuously increasing. Some Catholic monarchies, as we shall see, which had sprung up in the meantime in the unoccupied territories of the North, began to make violent attacks against the invader; and, although for the moment their conquests were not very vast, nevertheless they managed to carry out daring and dangerous incursions, they intruded in civil strife and pushed more and more to action those who in the occupied country had kept the Catholic faith and now with increasing concern saw the previous religious tolerance attenuated. Furthermore, both among these and among the “renegades” the feeling of independence rose; they resumed using the methods of political life followed at the time of the Visigothic monarchy, promoting conspiracies and revolts; the dissensions that broke out in the last days of its existence were renewed, making the life of the state more turbulent. And finally the Norman raids were added, which appeared for the first time in 844, sacked Lisbon, Cadiz, Seville, Algeciras, the province of Todmir, the Balearics, and could only be repelled when they were fought with ships of the type used by them.
According to baglib.com, the fuqah ā ‘, protected by Hichām I, rose up against his son el-Ḥakam I (796-821), who, as a free spirit, had reduced their power and, due to the kind of life he led, was condemned by the Orthodox; and they succeeded in raising the lower class of the “renegades” and the fanatical people, especially in Córdoba. The emir spared no half in the repression of the movement: on 8 May 814, to curb the decisive assault on his palace, he had an entire district of the city set on fire, so that, caught between two fires, the rebels were terribly decimated. ; and then expelled fifteen thousand families, especially “renegades”, who fled to Alexandria, Fez, on the island of Crete, where they founded a kingdom:’ not to completely alienate their powerful party. Furthermore, similar violent methods were used against the discontented, largely Catholic (Mozarabs), of Toledo, where, more than anywhere else, the desire for independence was alive: their leaders were treacherously killed (807). Finally, if it was not possible to prevent a raid on Lisbon by the king of Asturias and the reconquest of the Christianity of Barcelona, nevertheless daring raids were carried out in the north of the peninsula. The revolt of the Catholics was rekindled under el-Ḥakam’s two first successors, his son ‛Abd ar-Raḥmān II (821-52), and his ex filio grandson Moḥammed I (852-86): because they not only rose again in Mérida and Toledo, but, directed by Eulogius and Alvaro, to strengthen the faith of their co-religions, they began to use the weapon much more dangerous than martyrdom, which they procured by publicly offending the Muslim religion, and began what was called the “second age of martyrs”. After having ordered the first tortures and having seen their uselessness, to prevent the spread of the ‛Abd ar-Raḥmān movement, by a council he called in vain, he obtained with threats the condemnation of the search for martyrdom (852). The ferocious persecutions of his son, supported by the fuqah ā ‘, if they forced many to abjure, they also made Toledo rise again, who obtained the help of Ordoño I of León. And only the defeat of Quadacelete and numerous other death sentences persuaded the Christians to give up the struggle. Then were added, among all the most dangerous, the separatist insurrections of the provincial “renegades”, who moved to the conquest of full independence from the Emir and the Arab aristocracy, and to one and the other opposed their own kings and their own nobility. Toledo became a kind of republic, which Alfonso III of León placed under his own protectorate. The ancient Visigothic family of Banu-Qasi began to dominate Aragon, and Mūsà assumed the title of “third king of Spain”. Another “renegade”, ‛Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Merwān, it created a principality of Mérida and then it was strengthened in Badajoz. ‛Omar ibn Ḥafsūn, likewise descended from a Visigothic family, boldly took possession of Bobastro and became the actual ruler of the South. Eventually the situation worsened when the government was taken over by ‛Abdallah (888-912), son of Mohammed I, who came to power after poisoning his brother el-Mundhir (886-88). Then the Arab aristocracy also rose up both against the emir and against the “renegades”; the Berbers again stepped forward; Seville was frightfully sacked; the king of León who had brought the frontier of his state to the Duero, on the one hand, and the Fāṭimites of Africa, on the other, began to threaten the independence of the state from near.
